The Books Most Enjoyed by MillersTime Readers in 2012

29 Saturday Dec 2012

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures

Tags

Favorite Books, Favorite Books Read This Year, Millerstime, MillersTime Readers's Favorite Books

Ursula Klawitter / Corbis

First, much thanks to all who sent in your favorite reads, those who have done so in the past — and continued to do so — and the dozen or so new contributors too.

Please forgive my endless reminders, tho the results, I believe, may have been worth the nagging. (Late additions will be posted as they arrive, without any snarky comments from the editor.)

I often heard three comments from readers:

“Nothing really great this year…”
“I can’t really remember (all of) what I’ve read…but here are a few…”
*As I get older, I find I’m reading more nonfiction…”

Nevertheless, seventy of you contributed this year, listing 250 different books, split virtually evenly between fiction and nonfiction. The female-male division was 54%-46% (F/M), about what it has been in the past. About 20% of you were in what I would loosely call the ‘younger’ category, under approximately 39 years of age (my definition of ‘younger’ continues to expand).

I’ve made several adjustments in my posting of the results of what you’ve sent:

I’ve listed contributors alphabetically to make it easier for you to find specific individuals to see what they have enjoyed.
I have put stars (****) in front of all books that have been listed more than once. The number of stars refers to the number of times the book appears as a favorite (and NOT how highly individuals rated a book).
On a separate link, you can see in one place all the books that were listed more than once this year.
For those of you who may want to see the lists from previous years, simply click on which year you want to review – 2009, 2010, 2011.

For a quick overview, titles that appeared five or more times were:

Behind the Beautiful Forevers (NF) by Katherine Boo – 7
The Passage of Power (NF) by Robert Caro -6
This Is How You Lose Her (F) by Junot Diaz – 6
The Hare with Amber Eyes (NF) by Edmund de Waal – 5
Gone Girl (F) by Gillian Flynn – 5
Cutting for Stone (F) by Abraham Verghese – 5

But as is often said, “the devil is in the details.” I suspect one of the strengths of this (and previous) year’s list has more to do with what contributors said about why they enjoyed certain books rather than the number of times a book was listed.

When I printed out the lengthy list you are about to see, I found 20 different titles I immediately marked for my ‘to read’ list for the coming year and another 29 that also interested me. Many of these were only mentioned once or twice.

Just a reminder that this list is not meant to be the best books published in 2012, but rather what the title of this posting states – ‘The Books Most Enjoyed by MillersTime Readers in 2012.’

And, of course, I take responsibility for any inaccuracies or mistakes in the posting of the titles, authors, comments, etc. as MillersTime readers rarely make grammatical or other mistakes in their submissions. Please feel free to let me know about any of my errors as I can correct them quickly and easily.

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Seven More Films: Mini-Reviews

20 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

" "Detropia", "A Late Quartet", "A Royal Affair", "Burn", "Central Park Five", "Chasing Ice", "Quartet", "Sky Fall", "The Fitzgerald Family Christmas", "The Life of Pi", "West of Memphis, Documentaries, Films, Movies, Searching for Sugarman

Mini-reviews here of seven films I’ve seen over the last month or so (it’s great to be retired and also to belong to the DC Sunday morning Cinema Club).

And these don’t include Flight, Zero Dark Thirty, Jack Reacher, Les Miserables, and The Waiting Room (any other suggestions?), all of which I plan to see in the next ten days. Nor do they include recently reviewed movies on MillersTime: West of Memphis, Silver Linings Playsbook, A Late Quartet, Lincoln, and Argo.

Once I see the five listed above, I’ll have a post listing the movies this year that I’ve give ratings of four, four and a half, and five stars.

Life After Death? A Current Controversy

15 Saturday Dec 2012

Posted by Richard in Articles & Books of Interest, Escapes and Pleasures

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

" "Seeing God in the Third Millenium, "Hallucinations, "Proof of Heaven, "The Science of Heaven, David P. Stang, Dr. Eben Alexander, Dr. Oliver Sacks, Near Death Experiences

Family and friends can take you to some really strange ‘places.’ After joining my wife on a trip to Peru and into the Amazon recently, I went to Columbus, OH for six days for the Obama campaign because a friend urged me to do so. And now another friend wants to take a small group of us on horseback through the battlefield at Gettysburg. And then there’s this posting.

If You’ve Seen “Lincoln,” or Plan to…

14 Friday Dec 2012

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

" "Lincoln, " Lincoln Group of D.C., "Team of Rivals, "The Fiery Trial, Abraham Lincoln, Doris Kearn Goodwin, Eric Foner, Richard Margolies, Stephen Spielberg

(Having seen the Lincoln film, and mini-reviewed it on MillersTime, I got to wondering what folks who ‘know Lincoln’ and spend lots of time getting to know him even better would say about the film. I asked Richard Margolies, an active member of the DC Lincoln Group and one of those folks who spends a good deal of time increasing his knowledge of Lincoln, about the validity of Spielberg’s film and whether the Lincoln presented is one we can believe in. Here’s his response, with a few edits)

Abraham and Mary Todd In Context

by Richard Margolies

Spielberg’s Lincoln is masterful. It shows our greatest leader during a few weeks in January, 1865 working to gain the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in the House of Representatives. It focuses on his relationships, as portrayed by Doris Kearn Goodwin’s fine study, Team of Rivals.

Yet, like the story of blind people touching parts of an elephant, it is difficult to understand the whole person from a touch. A few examples.

Why Do We Love Sports?

10 Monday Dec 2012

Posted by Richard in Go Sox

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Agents, Coaches, Fans, Players, Sports Enthusiasts, Sports Fans

I’m ‘working with’ an eighth grader at a local school who for a major two year project he will complete this year is trying to determine “Why People Like Sports.” (Not so different, I guess, from a question a friend asked asked me as we were leaving a Nats’ game earlier this year: why are these games so important to us?)

Anyway, my young friend is looking for “sports’ enthusiasts – players, coaches, agents, fans – who are willing to be interviewed for this project.

The end result will be “a radio documentary/podcast about the root of why people like sports.” I participated in a 20 minute interview last month and mentioned that I’d be willing to help find others who might also be willing to be interviewed.

These interviews can be conducted “by phone, email or whatever is most convenient,” including in-person interviews if you are in the DC area.

If you are willing to help out, my young friend has a list of questions he is ready to ask you. Just let me know (Samesty84@gmail.com) if you are willing to participate and what is the best way for him to be in touch with you. I’ll pass on your contact info to him. Also, if you know anyone who works/plays in sports for a living, he would very much like to interview some of those folks also.

Maybe we will learn why so many of us are obsessed by which ever sport has taken on a life of its own in our own lives.

Ellen’s Pix from Brasilia

10 Monday Dec 2012

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Brasilia, Ellen Miller Photos, Oscar Niemeyer

Brasilia and Oscar Niemeyer

by Ellen Miller

One of the 20th century’s most influential architects — Oscar Niemeyer – died last week at the age of 104.

I felt lucky that just about 3 weeks prior I got a first hand introduction to his work when I was in Brasilia, a city for which he designed nearly every major building. As one architect said on his passing, “Brasilia is not simply designed, it is choreographed.”

That’s a perfect summary of my experience — not only did the buildings and the plazas hang together, but they were nearly picture perfect. (Though I found it hard to do justice to them.)

I was in Brasilia – my first trip there, but second to Brazil within six months – to speak at Transparency International’s conference – a gathering of nearly 2,000 from nearly every country in the world. Whenever possible on these speaking trips I try to sneak away for an afternoon when I am not needed, and hire a guide to learn something I couldn’t pick up from a guidebook.

“You Might as Well Be a Mensch”

06 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures

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""The Tummy Triology", "About Alice", "Deciding the Next Decider", "Dogfight", "Family Man", "Messages from My Father", "Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin", "Remembering Denny", Calvin Trillin, Politics & Prose Bookstore

Having the good fortune to live in the same city where the independent bookstore Politics & Prose is located, I stopped in last night to see and hear one of my favorite authors, humorist Calvin Trillin.

NYTimes photo

Trillin was in town to promote his latest book, Dogfight, a slim volume of his ‘deadline’ poetry (doggeralls, so to speak) about the 2012 Presidential campaign. This book is a sequel to his 2008 Deciding the Next Decider.

Lamenting that only one party had a primary fight and that he had already used up his Obama rhymes in 2008, he told the assembled (and aging) audience that he liked ‘iambic candidates,’ such as Ross Perot, John McCain, Chris Dodd, and Bob Dole. He read from his new book, mostly poking fun at Mitt Romney and the string of Republican candidates who ‘challenged’ him. He also admitted he once told Hilliary Clinton she had a bad name and was “insufficiently iambic.” He claimed Hilliary took that as a great complement.

Mixed in with his ‘poetry’ in Dogfight are perhaps a half dozen “Pauses for Prose,” most of which I think are probably better than his poems. In fact, generally I think his prose is much better than his verse.

But Trillin has long been a hero of mine, especially since he campaigned for making spaghetti carbonara our national dish and also admitted he didn’t like turkey and always “goes for Chinese” on Thanksgiving.

Trillin was born (1935) and grew up in Kansas City and has written for most of his life for The Nation and The New Yorker magazines. He has somehow maintained, retained, Midwestern cultural and regional values despite his living in Greenwich Village for more than 40 years. The title of this post, “You Might as Well Be a Mensch,” is his often quoted line of the advice his Kansas City father gave him.

If you don’t know Calvin Trillin and if you enjoy a dry sense of humor, mixed with self-deprecation and writings about family (specifically his two daughters, Sarah and Abigail and his wife Alice), food, and travel, you have some fun ahead.

You could start with any of these:

*About Alice

*Messages from My Father

*Family Man

*Remembering Denny

*The Tummy Trilogy (“American Fried,” “Alice, Let’s Eat,” and “Third Helpings”)

*Travels with Alice

*Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin (40 Years of Funny Stuff)